The two lead bulbs believed to contain a few drops of Christ’s blood were stolen overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, along with other precious objects from the church. The Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property has opened an investigation.
These relics had been kept for centuries within the consecrated walls of the abbey church. The reliquary of the Precious Blood, very priceless from the Benedictine abbey of the Trinity of Fécamp, in Seine-Maritime, was stolen during the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Other ancient liturgical goods, including precious tableware, were also taken. A complaint for theft was filed by the City of Fécamp, owner of the property since 1905 and whose town hall immediately adjoins the abbey.
“We are shocked by this gesture. It is a desecration”, was moved on Friday Emmanuelle Héricher, from the parish animation team, to our colleagues from Paris Normandy. The reliquary, a 19th century copper boxe century, housed two lead bulbs that would contain a few drops of Christ’s blood, collected during his martyrdom on the cross. Traditionally kept in a marble tabernacle, carved in the XVIe century, and placed in an apsidal chapel of the church, the casket was however kept in a locked glass cabinet in the sacristy at the time of the theft.
Trafficking in relics
The investigation was entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property. According to information from Paris Normandie, the burglar or burglars would have premeditated their blow. They would have let themselves be locked up in the church on Wednesday evening, an access route to the sacristy having been forced from inside the building. The theft was discovered Thursday morning. No surveillance system was installed inside or around the abbey church.
“This theft is an unbearable attack on the faith of all people who remember the Salvation obtained by the sacrifice of Christ”was indignant on Friday, in a press release, the bishop of Le Havre, Mgr Jean-Luc Brunin, deploring that this “Act of vandalism” occurred a few days before an important celebration linked to the cult of the relic, on June 14. “In a restorative gesture and in fidelity to the devotion to the Precious Blood so dear to the hearts of the inhabitants of Fécamp and its region, the celebration of next Tuesday, June 14 will be celebrated with even more fervor.” The burglary of the abbey of Fécamp could go to feed a traffic of relics, estimates Emmanuelle Héricher.
The illicit trade in relics is said to have increased in recent years, prompting a call to order from the Vatican in 2017. That year, a cloth impregnated with the blood of Pope John Paul II was stolen from the cathedral of Spoleto, in northern Italy. The relic of Fécamp is both older and of a more distant origin. According to legend, the bulbs of the reliquary would have arrived in Normandy by sea, in the trunk of a fig tree which would have floated towards Fécamp from Palestine. More likely, it could be a memento from the First Crusade. It would be the subject of devotion and pilgrimage since the twelfthe century. Five miracles would today be attributed to the Precious Blood of the Abbey of Fécamp.